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Chapter 12 Reinventing Ovidian Themes in Viceregal Peru: the Remaking of Fertility Myths in a Quechuan Play Andrea Lozano-Vásquez and Patricia Zalamea Written in Quechua1 between 1644 and 1646 and performed both in Viceregal Peru and in European cities such as Madrid and Naples,2 Juan de Espinosa Medrano’s play The Rape of Proserpina and Endymion’s Dream establishes an original connection between both characters and constitutes a particular case of appropriation, connected to other cultural responses to Ovid that may be seen through the lens of performance studies. While a few authors have addressed the play in its Colonial context, Espinosa Medrano’s engagement with Ovid’s Metamorphoses has not been studied as part of a wider-ranging 1 The authors are grateful to the Centro de Investigación y Creación of the School of Arts and Humanities at the Universidad de los Andes, Colombia, for a travel grant that allowed us to conduct on-site research in Cusco and Lima. Quechua is still the indigenous language spoken by the native dwellers of Cusco and was probably the most spoken language in the Inca Empire until the arrival of the Spanish con- querors. It is not clear if the play had a Spanish version, besides the Quechua one. Espinosa Medrano’s disciple, Agustín Cortés de la Cruz, refers to the play without mentioning its lan- guage, in the prologue to the first edition of La Novena Maravilla (Valladolid: 1695). In the next mention to the play, Clorinda Matto de Turner (“Don Juan de Espinosa Medrano”, in Bocetos al lápiz de americanos célebres (Lima: 1890)), made clear that the play was written in Quechua: ‘Between his translations from Latin to Quechua, it astonishes us to find the rape of Proserpina, by Virgil’ (‘Entre sus traducciones del latín a la quechua sorprende encontrar el rapto de Proserpina, de Virgilio’). In 2010, César Itier identified three manuscripts that include Espinosa Medrano’s text: the Navarro manuscript that belongs to Filomena Paula Navarro and dates from late 19th century; the Cárdenas manuscript from the beginning of the 20th century, copied by José Pío Cárdenas, and an incomplete Meneses (M) manuscript cop- ied by Teodoro Meneses from a previous manuscript owned by José Gabriel Cosio. Itier pro- duced a new edition after a rigorous collation of these sources: Itier C., El robo de Proserpina y sueño de Endimión. Auto sacramental en quechua (Lima: 2010). The Quechua used in this paper is taken from Itier’s edition. 2 Meneses T. L., Teatro quechua colonial (Lima: 1983) 91. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004437890_013 Reinventing Ovidian Themes in Viceregal Peru 401 sensorial experience which included processions and vivid imagery that de- manded a simultaneous bodily and spiritual response.3 Juan de Espinosa Medrano,4 better known as el Lunarejo (the Freckled One) [Fig. 12.1], was a renowned cleric based in Cusco who wrote panegyric sermons which included several classical references and Ovidian citations, demonstrat- ing his first-hand knowledge of Ovid. In fact, as recorded in his testament, Juan de Espinosa Medrano owned a copy of Pierre Bersuire’s moralized Ovid.5 A close reading of his texts reveals the creative ways in which the Ovidian narra- tive (beyond citations) was absorbed and transformed in the academic circles of mid 17th century Viceregal Peru. The question is not only about how Ovidian sources were transformed in such works. Nor is it about the fact that different editions of the moralized Ovid were available to scholarly circles of Viceregal Peru in the 16th and 17th centuries. It is rather about how these forms of ap- propriation were performed in the context of the syncretism of Catholic rites in 17th century Viceregal Peru. As we shall see, the resignification of Ovidian images and texts in a per- formative context is connected to theological debates of the 17th century, in particular those related to Human Salvation and the Immaculate Conception, central issues for the Thomist-oriented Seminary of Saint Anthony Abbot in Cusco [Fig. 12.2b], where Espinosa Medrano was educated and later held the Chair of Arts and Theology. 3 The authors who have studied the play in most detail are: Itier in his “Estudio preliminar”, in El robo de Proserpina, and Jay B. H., “Ovid in the Andes: The New World Morality Play, El rapto de Proserpina y sueño de Endimión”, Comparative Drama 28.4 (1994–1995) 523. 4 Juan de Espinosa Medrano (1630?–1688), was a renowned cleric, prolific preacher, theologian and literary writer, who lived in Cusco, the main city of the Viceroyalty of Peru. His literary production is as important as the work of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, even if less studied. His most famous work is the Apologetic Speech in Favour of Don Luis de Góngora (Apologético en favor de don Luis de Góngora, 1662); he also wrote many sermons – compiled by his disciple Cortés de la Cruz after his death in 1695 and titled The Ninth Wonder (La novena maravilla) –, a course of Thomistic philosophy (1688) and some autos sacramentales – or sacramental acts, a form of morality play unique to Spain whose subject is always related to Eucharist mysteries. Of these, there is only one preserved play in Spanish, Loving Your Own Death (Amar su propia muerte, 1650) and two plays written in Quechua, The Prodigal Son (El hijo pródigo, 1657) and The Rape of Proserpina and Endymion’s Dream (El rapto de Proserpina y el sueño de Endimión, 1650). His personal life is a mystery, but we have enough evidence regarding two relevant is- sues: he had close knowledge of indigenous traditions, beliefs and languages, and his intel- lectual foundations were strongly influenced by the hybrid education that characterized the Seminary of Saint Anthony Abbot, sometimes ruled by Jesuits, other times by Dominicans. 5 On Espinosa Medrano’s ownership of Bersuire’s Ovidius moralizatus, see Guibovich Perez P., “El testamento e inventario de bienes de Espinosa Medrano” Historica XVI.1 (1992), 21..

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